


Sluagh

by jenna_thorn



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-03-05 15:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3124589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn





	Sluagh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beadslut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beadslut/gifts).



She came back out of the water as slowly as she could stand, wary of any remaining unknown entities. Sluagh, indeed, she thought, but the debris falling from the explosion landed lifelessly, splatting across the edge of the pond like deflated frogs.

She pulled pond scum out of her hair then had to shake her hands free in turn as green strands clung there, under the collar of her suit jacket, even to the hem of her skirt as she trudged toward the grass, curling her toes to keep her shoes on her feet and out of the clinging muck. Mulder limped toward the shore, soaked to the waist, mud-spattered to his collar, and, she squinted, his shoulder was smoking. He dropped to his ass in the mud and she knelt, then sat beside him.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Mulder said, gazing across the undamaged field on the other side of McHenry's property as unidentified but seemingly amphibious bits flopped, finally inert, behind them. 

"True," she answered. She wrung out her hair with one hand, then patted him on the shoulder, extinguishing the ember there which covered the palm of her hand with ash. She looked at it, sighed, and wiped it off on her ruined skirt.

The sun shone on them, but it wasn't warm enough to mitigate the squelch between her toes and the clinging of her slip. She leaned forward to shift her weight to rise, but Mulder, beside her, was standing already, his hand out, his gaze back toward the barn, and past it, their rental car. She took his hand, and let him pull her up. 

They walked back to the rental shoulder to shoulder, trailing pond weeds and ash.


End file.
